Blogging for the Gray Wolf

For a time, I lived in an old log cabin on 146 acres in Northwest Montana, a stone’s throw from a collared wolf pack, and I listened to their haunting howls during the morning’s wee hours.

Following Montana, I lived in the Methow Valley (on the east slopes of Washington’s North Cascade mountains), fifteen crow miles from the Lookout wolf pack, the pack that the White family all but destroyed. The White’s had lost no livestock to wolves while they attempted to ship bloody wolf pelts to Canada, emailing boasts and images of the dead wolves to friends.

I spoke up for the Wedge Pack in Olympia (WA’s capitol), after seven members of the pack were shot from a helicopter by Wildlife Services in 2012, all to protect irresponsibly ranged cows grazing on terrain unsuitable to livestock. Lethal removal of the Wedge, said WDFW director Phil Anderson, would hit a re-set button with ranchers so that the action would not need to be repeated. I was at the meeting when he spoke these words and they were indeed in this context.

I now live a handful of miles from the Canadian border, on the west slopes of the North Cascades and I will tell you there are wolves here, dispersers and with packs on the horizon. I saw my first wolf fourteen years ago in this greater Kulshan area, and my second wolf nine years ago in a canyon above the Methow Valley.

On Tuesday, October seventh, I attended the WDFW wolf meeting in Colville, Stevens County, in northeastern Washington. I sat quietly and observed during the meeting, taking notes and quotes, as well as images with my camera. The crowd in attendance was filled mainly with ranchers and with those opposing wolf recovery. It was a lynch mob scene! WDFW allowed the crowd to call out mean-spirited comments to those few who spoke in support of wolves (this was ranching country, after all). WDFW allowed those speaking against wolves to talk well in excess of their allotted three minutes, permitting speakers to talk back to the WDFW panel and refuse to sit down and shut up when asked. Rancher Len McIrvine refused to stop talking well after using his and other’s time allotments, and the crowd cheered. The department allowed this behavior.

WDFW allowed the crowd to stand and cheer loudly when there was talk of wolves having been killed: the Ruby creek female hit by a car and the Huckleberry female flushed out of dense forest (forest unsuitable for grazing) and shot from a helicopter by Wildlife Services.

I acquired the necropsy report for the Huckleberry female and interviewed the department’s veterinarian who had performed the necropsy and had written the report. It is notable that the Huckleberry pack female’s stomach was empty when she was shot dead. She had not eaten for close to two days. She certainly hadn’t been eating the rancher Dashiell’s sheep, and so the non-lethal tactics and helicopter hazing had worked. And yet a wolf needed to die.

The Colville crowd called for three more Huckleberry wolves to die, and better yet the whole pack! They demanded a total of at least four dead wolves, although the department had said they would shoot “up to four wolves” never guaranteeing they would shoot four wolves total. The WDFW panel just sat and listened to the calls for more dead wolves, nodding their heads and looking sympathetic, never making this correction to the ranchers’ demands for more wolf blood to be spilled.

The department’s initial statement regarding the aerial assault on the Huckleberry pack is that they would only shoot if there were multiple animals under the helicopter as a means of size comparison so that they would only take out pups and two year-old wolves. They would not target black, adult wolves as the collared male is black (they use the collars for tracking purposes, of course). Later the department’s directive was amended (changed and twisted) and it was stated they would remove any wolf (or wolves) but for the collared male.

When the Huckleberry female was shot, she was the sole animal under the under helicopter and weighed close to 70 pounds while alive (reports of 65 and 66 lbs were post-mortem, although WDFW never made this clear). Said the department’s carnivore specialist Donny Moratello, “We were certainly disappointed in this outcome but, there was no way to sort from the air in this circumstance.” When I asked him why take the risk of shooting the wrong wolf if there is no means of comparison, he replied, “You know going into it you get what you get. We did not have the opportunity to sort in this case.” As well as saying, “To not shoot (a wolf) they would have not been complying with the directive at that point, they would not be following orders.”

So, you get what you get. The helicopter had been up on multiple occasions over a number of days, unable to spot animals due to the visibility limits of the dense terrain, terrain unsuitable for healthy and responsible ranching and in which the sheep were being grazed. Simply, the lethal endeavor was becoming too expensive, so they flushed out a single black, adult sized wolf and shot. Blam! They shot the breeding female whose pups at the time were only a little over 4 months old and unable to hunt on their own. The department’s reports to this day say the pups were almost full grown but, this is grossly inaccurate as per their own veterinarian.

It is also important to note from WDFW’s own reports and slide presentation, that most of the wolf activity and depredations fell outside of Dashiell’s grazing allotment. Dashiell had not had a working range rider for close to thirty days; during the onset and well into the confirmed depredation activity. He had merely two working guard dogs which, is insufficient for the size of the herd (1800) and sprawling, densely forested terrain. Two more guard dogs and additional human presence were added around the period of the Huckleberry kill order, but it was too little too late. Wolves needed to die.

Additionally, rancher Dashiell had not been removing sheep carcasses including well before the confirmed depredations, as evidenced by the carcass’ level of decomposition and thus, the inability to determine cause of death.

Northeastern Washington commissioners spoke in support of the ranchers and the call for dead wolves, speaking to taking matters of wolf control in their own hands. There was talk of shooting, trapping and most of all, poisoning the wolves. In a Seattle Times article Rancher Len McIrvine is quoted as saying, “Our ancestors knew what had to happen — you get poison and you kill the wolves.”

The quad-county commissioners grandstanded and played to the lynch mob. Jim DeTro, Okanogan County commissioner opened his speech with, “Welcome to Okanogan County where you can now drink a Bud’, smoke a bud and marry your bud.” He said this with obvious disdain and the crowd laughed loudly. He said, “People in my county have decided to not shoot, shovel and shut up, but to be totally silent.” He said this as a wink and nod to poisoning wolves while the department panel sat there silently, nodding their heads up and down and looking sympathetic.

I tell you, when a wolf is killed illegally and poisoned, WDFW is guilty of complicity y by not speaking out against these illegal acts and by nodding their heads up and down in agreement.

DeTro continued on that people in his county don’t want the agency to know when they’ve seen a wolf or experienced (alleged) wolf depredation. They want, he said, to take matters in their own hands. DeTro then said smiling proudly, “Olympia, you have a problem.”

Mike Blankenship, Ferry County commissioner, stood there and encouraged people to take matters in their own hands, as well. All the while, WDFW just sat there nodding their heads, looking sympathetic and remaining silent. More complicity!

A local sheriff said, “Wolves are messy eaters, scattering a cow from hell to breakfast,” and making other inflammatory statements about wolves to the again cheering crowd. He said he was “pissed” that only one Huckleberry pack member had been killed.

One rancher cried out angrily, “Wolves kill to eat!” I was curious then, as to what he had done to his livestock before they ended up in the grocer’s meat section, if his livestock were not also killed to be eaten.

At the end of the meeting, WDFW director Phil Anderson acted very cozy and familiar with the ranchers, in spite of them having raked him mercilessly over the coals for not killing more wolves.

He looked sympathetic and referred to them by name, and recalled riding around in their trucks with them. Anderson said he would plan a closed meeting with the area ranchers to discuss wolf issues and management. I demand that NO meeting in relation to Washington wolves be closed.

Two final points:

-In the case of the Huckleberry pack, the department did not adequately implement the state’s wolf management plan, nor did they adhere to their own published procedures, before lethal removal took place. This negligence WILL NOT be repeated.

-We demand full documentation of every wolf mortality, and that given the threats to use poisons, we expect that toxicology reports be made public as part of any necropsy, where cause of death has not otherwise been determined. If wolves are poisoned, WDFW will be held guilty of complicity due to their behavior in Colville; supporting poisoning by remaining silent and nodding their heads up and down.

While I sat silently during the Colville meeting, a rancher two rows back passed me a piece of paper on which he had scrawled, “Wolf Lover!” When I looked back at him he scowled at me severely. I wrote in reply on the note, “So?” along with a happy face, and passed it back to him. I’ll take his accusation as a compliment.

Don’t Silence the Howl!

from Anonymous for Wolves

So quickly we forget. Joe Public, the press, politicians, you and me, we appear to tire of being reminded that the problem remains, that the system is broken, that something needs to be done NOW. We become monkeys sitting comfortably on our asses, our eyes tightly shut, our fingers in our ears and our mouths so filled with food that we cannot speak.

Newspaper editors tell me that there has been enough in print lately about the Washington State wolves and that there is currently little interest in updates or fact checks.

Allow me then to remind you that wolves are being killed every day, killed and tortured by poachers, ranchers, hunters, trappers, sociopaths, and by your very own state and federal governments. Wolves are dying at the hands of state and federal agencies to “protect” irresponsibly ranged livestock and you are paying dearly for this service. You pay with your tax dollars and maybe you even pay with a heavy heart. The wolves are paying with their lives.

Between poaching, tribal takes and government issued kill orders, nowhere else in the Lower 48 is there a more dangerous place for a wolf than in the Northeast corner of Washington State. And the director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Phil Anderson, has been doing his darndest to make this so, first with the death sentence carried out in September 2012 on eight members of the Wedge pack, and now, not even two years later calling for an aerial assault on the Huckleberry pack. Both packs were located in northeastern Washington, Stevens County, with members killed to pacify irresponsible ranchers busily crying wolf.

The Wedge pack was accused of attacking and eating McIrvine cows, yet necropsy reports from the dead wolves found that no, they had not been ingesting cows. At the time, WDFW’s carnivore specialist Dave Ware told a local news station that agreements with ranchers were subsequently being put into place (new best practices for non-lethal aversion tactics) for the following year to, “avoid a repeat of the Wedge Pack situation.” While Anderson had said that killing the Wedge would “hit a re-set button” between ranchers and wolf management.

McIrvine, the rancher on who’s cows the Wedge had allegedly been snacking, was quoted as saying that he believed groups with “a radical environmental agenda” were conspiring to introduce gray wolves in order “to take our (grazing) lease from us”; a lease which allows him to range livestock in terrain unsuitable for responsible ranching and for pennies an animal. Welcome to crazy town! Gray wolves have been returning to the Northern Rocky States from Canada naturally, yes, of their very own accord, without the aid of any radical environmentalists.

Are you curious of the bill from Wildlife Services for the aerially gunning of the Wedge? $76,500.00 that could have bought a lot of McIrvine cows!

Said another of WDFW’s carnivore specialists recently, “Wolves are recovering (in the Northern Rocky States) at a phenomenal rate, a rate unheard of in wildlife. This growth rate is unprecedented and to experience the return of an apex predator in our lifetime is exciting.” But are wolves retuning so that they can again be systematically and inhumanely eradicated, as they were almost seventy years ago?

Details from the recent aerial gunning of the Huckleberry pack’s breeding female were slow to come. WDFW’s initial goal was to gun from a helicopter, again using USDA approved Wildlife Services, up to four members of the pack thereby reducing their numbers and lowering the pack’s food requirements. This could also, they hoped, break the offending male’s cycle of sheep depredation.

Dashiell’s sheep, for which this wolf had been found to have acquired a taste, were being irresponsibly ranged on a rugged and sprawling timber company allotment for mere pennies per. Allow unprotected sheep to run around in the woods in known wolf country… what else would one expect? Wolves find sheep to be delicious and easy prey.

But the rancher and again WDFW cried wolf, saying that there had been in place an active range rider with guard dogs on the scene and that neither had been an effective means of deterrence. It later surfaced that Dashiell’s range rider had quit over a month prior to the incidents and that the added protection of range riders had not occurred until August 20th (the Huckleberry wolf was shot on the 23rd). Frequent nocturnal human presence was also added but not until after the kill order was already in place.

It was simply a matter of far too little, far too late.

The Wildlife Services sharpshooter went up in the chopper over a three-day period, experiencing poor visibility conditions and unable to spot wolves for the first two days. On the third day the shooter finally spotted a lone, black wolf under the craft and shot her dead. BLAM! It was day three of a very expensive undertaking and a wolf needed to die.

Prior to shooting the lone, black, nearly 70 pound wolf (reports of 66lbs were the results of post-mortem weighing) WDFW made statements that they did not wish to shoot the breeding pair nor the collared male. To this end WDFW vowed to only shoot when multiple wolves were under the chopper to use for size comparison and to not shoot black wolves as the collared male is black. They would shoot smaller wolves: two-year olds and pups. And while the breeding female was not a monster in size, 70 pounds is not small especially if you have other wolves spotted for size comparison.

But in the end, the only instructions from WDFW to the sharpshooter were that if the opportunity to sort existed, to try and not remove the collared male. “You know going into it you get what you get,” said the guy I talked to from WDFW.

It took me weeks and numerous phone calls to several WDFW contacts to find out what had been the color of the breeding female. In an earlier interview, Ware (WDFW) had told me he thought she was gray, not white or black, but your standard gray. The others I spoke with knew her weight but not her color. I finally got a hold of the report from the wildlife veterinarian who conducted the necropsy on the dead wolf for WDFW.

The vet confirmed that the pups would have been about four months old at the time of her death, weighing about forty pounds: far from almost full grown as I had been told earlier by WDFW, and far smaller than their almost 70 pound mother if one wished to use them for size comparison.

When asked, the vet said that the breeding female had been shot through the chest and had likely “bled out quickly.” She had been shot with buckshot which is bigger than bb sized pellets and scatters like shotgun powder.

Her postmortem condition was “Poor” because she had been frozen, taking two days to thaw with the first tissues to thaw beginning to rot early on (the vet had been out of area at the time of the killing and so freezing the breeding female’s body had become necessary).

Her stomach was empty -EMPTY- at the time of her death; she hadn’t eaten in 24-48 hours, not sheep, not anything. Had she ever eaten sheep? Truly, we will never know. It is obvious, however, that the non-lethal aversion activity and maybe even the noise of the chopper’s flights, was working days before she was shot; apparently this was so disruptive she stopped eating all together. But again, a wolf needed to die …

Wildlife Services were out in Washington again recently, this time killing coyotes on Vashon Island, coyotes who had also discovered that sheep are delicious and easy prey. Sheep that had been shipped up from Oregon to the Island for the Vashon Sheepdog Classic. Sheep grazing in an unfenced field and ironically enough, without the protection of guard dogs. The dead sheep were not removed and the coyotes came back for those the very next day. No surprise!

And now three coyote’s howls have been silenced forever.

Do not forget and do not remain silent. Do not become accustomed to images of dead wolves as some Conservation Nothing organizations would prefer of you. Do not sit idly by while heartless humans and greedy, weak government officials cry “off with their heads” to apex predators or to any wildlife.

Take action! Make noise! Never compromise! Do not let Them silence the howl!

The Colvillle Tribes, in eastern Washington, areholding a wolf hunton their 1.4 million acre reservation, which is larger than Glacier National Park in Montana. There are at least 2 wolf packs living on the reservation, maybe three. Many wildlife advocates were shocked by this turn of events. The Colville tribe’s actions run contrary to Native Americans in the Great Lakes, specifically the Ojibwe, who are struggling to save their wolf brothers.

“The wolf, Ma’iingan, is considered sacred by the Ojibwe and figures highly in their creation stories. Tribal member Essie Leoso noted that according to tradition, Ma’iingan walked with first man.

“Killing a wolf is like killing a brother,” she said.”….Indian Country, Today Media dot com

I understand the Colville Tribe land is sovereign and they have the right to manage their affairs as they see fit but it’s very difficult to understand why the tribes would hunt wolves when so few wolves exist in Washington state in the first place and are still protected under state law in Eastern Washington. It’s especially disturbing coming on the heals of the slaughter of the Wedge Pack, which is still fresh in every one’s minds. I hope the tribe re-thinks this decision. Wolves are a vital part of the ecosystem, they keep ungulate herds healthy and strong.

Scientists are sounding the alarm over the loss of our top predators:

“Just as the world’s lions, tigers, and bears are disappearing worldwide, a scientific consensus is emerging that they are critical to ecosystem function, exerting control over smaller predators, prey, and the plant world.

Using such terms as “deep anxiety” and “grave concern” to signal their alarm, the authors contend that the loss of large animals, and apex predators in particular, constitutes humanity’s “most pervasive influence” on the environment. It amounts, they argue, to a “global decapitation” of the systems that support life on Earth.”…Environment 360, The Crucial Role of Predators

Colville Tribe opens wolf hunting season on reservation

Wisconsin Tribes Struggle to Save Their Brothers the Wolves From Sanctioned Hunt

Wolf Hunting Not Allowed on Three Minnesota Reservations

October 29, 2012

The three reservations are depicted in Zone A on the map in the MnDNR Wolf Regulations. Tribal officials advise that going on Indian lands to take game, including wolves, is a federal crime under Title 18 of the United States Code and that they would seek the prosecution of violators.

The Tribal Councils say that hunting wolves for sport is inconsistent with a tradition of subsistence hunting and that for some members, hunting wolves presented conflicts with cultural practices.

Ojibwe bands ban wolf hunting – but only on Indian-controlled lands

Minnesota Ignores Indians, Allows Wolf Hunting

The Crucial Role of Predators:A New Perspective on Ecology

15 SEP 2011: ANALYSIS

Scientists have recently begun to understand the vital role played by top predators in ecosystems and the profound impacts that occur when those predators are wiped out. Now, researchers are citing new evidence that shows the importance of lions, wolves, sharks, and other creatures at the top of the food chain.

The brutal aerial gunning of Washington’s Wedge Pack is much on the minds of wolf advocates. The dead bodies of eight wolves were recovered and have been examined, including two of the four pups (the two remaining pups are unaccounted for.)

WDFW is holding a public hearing on the issue, October 5-6 in Olympia, Washington. The hearing will be televised.

From the Seattle Times:

Wedge Wolf Pack: Watch commission meeting here Friday

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will be getting an update Friday afternoon on the state’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, including the department’s recent decision to eliminate the Wedge Pack in the northeast corner of the state.

We will carry TVW’s live video of the meeting here starting at 1 p.m. Friday when Nate Pamplin, the department’s assistant director of the wildlife program, and Steve Pozzanghera, director of the region where the pack was killed, will brief the commission.

The commission will take public comments starting at 3:15 p.m. The department says the livestock industry and conservation organizations will be represented at the meeting.

The original meeting site has been changed to accommodate a larger crowd. If you’re attending, head for the Columbia Room inside the Capitol Building. Visit this sitefor directions.

Please attend this vital meeting to support the fallen Wedge Pack wolves, who were were sacrificed for public land grazing and the Diamond M Ranch.

The wolves had every right to roam free on that land, not constrained by entitled cattle rancher’s, who have the nerve to graze their cattle on the American people’s land and expect a predator free landscape, when they are the intruders there, not the wolves. If they don’t want to tolerate our native predators they can pull their cattle off our land. The killing of wolves for agribusiness must stop!!! Thousands of wolves have died since their reintroduction to the Northern Rockies because of cattle and now the same, tired scenario is playing out in Washington state.

This is a do-over of my previous post in which I got a few facts wrong. The alpha pair is dead, effectively ending the Wedge Pack. Yes, a few wolves got away, it was estimated there were either 8 or 11 wolves in the pack but killing off the alpha pair will cause those wolves to disband. And what about the pups? Were they killed?

This is a very dark week for Washington state, 6 wolves killed in three days. I have no doubt other wolves will fill the Wedge Pack’s territory and it will be rinse and repeat of this situation if cows are still grazing in the Wedge unprotected.

End grazing leases and kick these ranchers off our public land. That is the only solution to this, not pandering to them and using taxpayer dollars to kill native wolves. Badly done WDFW, badly done!!

Wildlife agents finish job of eliminating wolf pack

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The collar around its neck was supposed to lead biologists to a better understanding of how an alpha male wolf leads its pack.

Instead, that GPS collar is what sharpshooters in a helicopter used to track down and kill the followers of the Wedge Wolf Pack in northeast Washington state. And on Thursday, after leading most, if not all, members of its young pack to their deaths, the alpha male was shot and killed.

Please light a candle for the five fallen Wedge Pack wolves who were sacrificed on the altar of the sacred cow. Continue to advocate for the 3 to 6 wolves that remain. Demand the killing be called off!!

Below is a form letter posted in the Spokesman – Review, composed by the Center For Biological Diversity meant for Washington Governor Gregoire.

===

Pro-wolf groups stir up ranks to protest killing of Wedge Pack

ENDANGERED SPECIES — Pro-wolf groups aren’t all standing by as Washington Fish and Wildlife staffers try to eliminate the cattle-preying Wedge Pack in northern Stevens County. Here’s a form letter being promoted by the Center for Biological Diversity:

Dear John,

The killing will be carried out on the public’s dime using marksmen on the ground. If that doesn’t work, these wolves will be shot from helicopters.Only seven wolf packs live in Washington state — but the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has ordered the entire Wedge pack killed in response to cattle depredations. That includes at least eight wolves.

Washington’s wolf management plan clearly states that, to avoid cattle losses, non-lethal measures must be taken first to protect livestock. In this case only minimal actions were taken to avoid wolf-livestock conflicts. The state should not reward irresponsible ranchers by killing wolves that are only acting as wolves do.

Please call Gov. Christine Gregoire now at (360) 902-4111 and tell her you do not support killing the Wedge pack when ranchers have not done their part to protect cattle.

Then let us know you got through to the governor’s office by clicking here. A sample call has been provided below:

“Hello, my name is ________________ and I live in ________________, Washington. I’m calling to ask Governor Gregoire to stop the killing of the Wedge pack by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. I’d also like to state my opposition to state-run wolf killing, particularly in cases where ranchers have not done everything they can to avoid losing livestock. Can you please tell me the governor’s position on this issue?

[Wait for explanation]

“Thanks, that’s good to know. I still don’t believe the circumstances justify killing the Wedge pack. These animals are endangered, and killing them should always be viewed as a great loss. The kill order should be permanently revoked.”

[Offer the staffer your address or zip code, and thank them for their time.]

Nice going WDFW, you’re giving Washington state quite the reputation. It makes me sick to think the packs four babies are either dead or will be soon. Don’t weep Wolf Warriors, get active!! How about a protest to let WDFW know how you feel about their cowardly act!!!

The wolves were slaughtered just seven miles from the Canadian border, I’m sure running for their lives. If only they were a little closer to the border. Their territory extends into Canada, I hope what’s remaining of the pack keeps on going and hides from these killers.

Why are cows trumping wolves on public land? Retire grazing leases!! Stop catering to cattle barons, they don’t own this country and they don’t own our public lands. I don’t care how long they’ve been grazing their cows on America’s land, they need to take their stream polluting, methane producing gas bags (no disrespect to cows, they are not at fault) and high-tail it back to their own property and leave the wolves and our other native carnivores alone. The only way to make this happen is if the American people wake up from their long sleep and speak out!!

State kills 3 more Wedge Pack wolves today

Department Director Phil Anderson said a WDFW marksman shot the wolves from a helicopter at about 8 a.m. The wolves were shot about seven miles south of the U.S.-Canada border in the same area where two other wolves from the Wedge Pack were killed by aerial gunning yesterday.

“Mike Hudak’s Western Turf Wars—the book you need to understand how governmental mismanagement of ranching is destroying America’s public lands with your tax dollars.”

It didn’t take Washington WDFW long to act like every other state fish and game agency, where wolves call home. They’re targeting the entire Wedge Pack of 8-11 wolves, including the pups, for death, over a few cow losses, cows that are grazing on THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’S PUBLIC LAND!!

Here’s a message to subsidized, welfare ranchers. GET YOUR FRIGGIN COWS OFF OUR PUBLIC LAND! You are the problem, not the wolves. If you don’t like wolves, then round-up your cows and put them in a secure enclosure ON YOUR LAND with an electric fence. fladry, range riders and whatever else you have to do to protect your investment. It’s not the American people’s job to subsidize your poor animal husbandry practices.

How many businesses in America have their own private goon squads ready to do their bidding, like ranchers do, with sharpshooters at their disposal to kill innocent wolves? As far as I’m concerned the cattle grazing on public land are fair game for predators if the rancher/lease holder practices the Columbus Method of cattle grazing, “Let em loose in the Spring and discover em in the Fall”

This particular rancher is grazing his cows on Colville National Forest grazing allotments. The cows will be rounded up in the fall. Nuff said.

On WDFW’s website they list apparent pro-active measures taken to prevent depredations. I think they’re lame at best. The bottom line is cattle are a non-native species that pollute streams, trample native grasses and release methane into the atmosphere. Then, when their short, sad lives are over, they’rebrutally slaughtered.

Wolves are native to these lands, cattle are not. Maybe it’s time to start eating less beef. The cows and wolves will thank you.

If ranchers place cows unprotected on vast public land allotments, where predators room and use no pro-active measures or half-hearted ones, why do they expect wolves to ignore a potential food source that have virtually no defenses (most ranchers de-horn cattle.) I have to ask what fantasy land they’re living in?

And yet these tiny cow losses are nothing compared to the tens of thousands of cows that die from disease, birthing, accidents, theft, etc. in Washington state every year. In 2010 alone 19, 800 cattle were lost to non-predation and 17,500 calves, totaling 37,300 cattle losses. (NASS) Why don’t we hear about that? Those losses COULD effect a rancher’s bottom line and aren’t reimbursed. Instead, a handful of cow depredations, that may or may not be caused by wolves, stirs a media frenzy. It’s only when wolves are involved that the rancher barons start ramping up the rhetoric. Do they care less for the cattle lost to non-predation? When cows die from disease does Wildlife Services show up with sharpshooters and traps?

We are subsidizing the killing of our predators. Taxpayer dollars are financing the all out assault on the Wedge Pack, because Washington WDFW is calling in Wildlife Services to do the dirty work of killing 5 month old puppies and their family. To add insult to injury we allow these ranchers to graze their cattle on our public lands for peanuts.

This needs to stop and the only way it’s going to stop is to revoke rancher’s grazing leases and force them to raise their cattle on their own property. If I have a tenant renting my house, who doesn’t follow the rules, I’ll make sure I won’t renew their lease.

The American people have the right to decide who uses our land, we just haven’t exercised that right. Organizations like Western Watersheds Project have been very successful litigating grazing rights issues. There is no reason public land grazing can’t be shut down or severely cut back if the public gets involved. Grazing cattle on public land is one of the biggest threats to our predators, specifically wolves.

Washington state has proven they are no better than Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona or New Mexico concerning gray wolves.

I encourage everyone to call Washington’s Department of Tourism and let them know how you feel about cows trumping wolves on public land. Let them know you won’t be traveling or visiting the state if they destroy this wolf pack and you’ll spread the word to your friends and family that Washington is bowing to the livestock industry.

GET CATTLE OFF PUBLIC LAND AND STOP KILLING WOLVES!!

===

WDFW Now Aims To Take Out Entire Wedge Wolf Pack

By Andy Walgamott, on September 21st, 2012

State hunters are ramping up their efforts to kill wolves in northern Stevens County, and now don’t plan to stop until they’ve killed off the Wedge Pack.

“The attempt now is to remove the entire pack,” said WDFW wolf policy coordinator Steve Pozzanghera this morning.

The agency is loading up its toolbox for the effort to take out the eight to 11 members of the livestock-depredating group, including tasking more marksmen, trappers and biologists to the area; hunting over not only calf carcasses but roadkilled deer; hunting at all hours with a fuller array of weaponery; bringing in USDA Wildlife Services for “technical assistance” on snaring; and possibly bringing local law enforcement into the hunt.

Diamond Pack Wolf Pups 2009

Washington’s Diamond Wolf Pack has one less wolf thanks to a Washington hunter with an Idaho wolf tag. He killed a male wolf from the pack near Kalispell Creek, which is not far from the Washington/Idaho border. This is the second pack member killed by a hunter. Diamond pack female WA-382F was killed 300 yards from the Washington/Idaho border last winter. Is there something going on here? 300 yards???? What an outrage!

Isn’t it an amazing coincidence that two wolves from this pack were killed in less than a year? Is the word out on this pack that they range close to the border?

Wolves are in mortal danger anytime they venture near the wolf killing state of Idaho. OR-9, the brother of the famous wandering wolf OR-7, unfortunately swam the Snake River back into Idaho from Oregon and was killed by a hunter with an expired tag.

It makes me sick to read about dead wolves almost every day. Wolves aren’t safe anywhere. Idaho and Montana wolves are suffering through the third wolf hunt season thanks to the sellouts in the US Senate and our detached President, who has never responded to our pleas for relief for these beleaguered wolves.

This fight is far from over, we may be down but we’re not out!

===

Diamond Pack wolf killed by hunter in Idaho

ENDANGERED SPECIES — Even though Washington wolves are still protected by state endangered species rules, Idaho offered a touch of “management” to the Diamond Pack of northeastern Washington over the weekend.

A Washington man with an Idaho wolf hunting license killed a wolf on Saturday just east of the Pend Oreille County/Washington border.

The wolf had the red Washington eartags 379, 378, which means it had been caught, tagged and released by Washington Fish and Wildlife Department biologists studying the Diamond Pack’s movements.

According to Jim Hayden, Idaho Fish and Game Department regional wildlife manager, the male wolf was killed by the hunter in Kalispell Creek. which drains into Priest Lake near Nordman.

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Wolf 253, the beloved Yellowstone Druid wolf named Limpy, who was shot and killed in March 08, on the very day ESA protections were lifted for the gray wolf, by the then Bush Administration.